


It Wasn't Meant to Be This Way

by Boogum



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, F/M, Hopeful Ending, LadyNoir - Freeform, Romance, adrienette - Freeform, enemies au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boogum/pseuds/Boogum
Summary: "My kwami told me it wasn't meant to be this way. She said we were meant to be a team." Tears rolled down her mask. "She said you were meant to help me."
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 14
Kudos: 162





	1. It Wasn't Meant to Be This Way

**Author's Note:**

> this was in my _course of love_ collection, but i decided to make it its own fic since its a 2-parter. I originally wrote this story for days 12 and 22 of fictober 2019
> 
> Day 12: "What if I don't see it?"
> 
> Day 22: "We could have a chance."

The sky was dark and rumbling. Vivid green eyes, luminous like a cat's, winked at her from the shadows of the Eiffel Tower. Her heart thumped faster.

A damning beep came from her earrings.

"Now that's not a good sound," Chat Noir taunted as he stepped into the light. He'd split his staff and held the twin batons in a deceptively loose grasp.

She balled her hands into fists. "Get back!"

"Or you'll what?" His smile gleamed, sharp like his claws. "This is it, Ladybug. You've lost your champions, your yoyo is useless, and judging by that beep coming from your earrings, I'd say you only have a few minutes left before you detransform. It would be in your best interest to surrender to me now. You must see that."

She wiped the blood from her split lip. "What if I don't see it?"

He laughed, but there was no humour in the sound. There never was. "Then I'd say you're deluded."

He lunged in a streak of black, twin batons coming for her. The metal danced before her eyes in hypnotising silver. Then her hands snapped out and grabbed each end of the weapons. The tips stopped inches from her face. Her arms trembled, boots sliding against the rain-slickened metal as she strained to hold him off. His green eyes burned into hers.

 _It's over_ , his stare seemed to say. _Just give up._

She gritted her teeth and pushed back, using every ounce of strength she had. He grunted as he was forced to hold his ground, but neither could get the upper-hand. They had always been evenly matched.

"You can't hold me off forever," he hissed. "Your time is running out."

As if to corroborate his words, her earrings gave another beep. Only one spot left.

Panic screamed in her mind, clawed at her chest. Still, she'd been fighting as Ladybug too many years to give up now. She couldn't let Hawkmoth get her miraculous. Paris was counting her.

She grinned and relaxed her hold, but instead of letting the batons bash into her, she flowed with the motion—controlled it so she could slide down and kick his legs hard to knock him off balance. His body toppled ungracefully. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she scrabbled onto him, desperate, half-snarling through her teeth. She wrenched the batons from his grasp with clawing, tugging fingers and sent both flying. Then she went for his ring.

"Cataclysm!"

Her heart lodged in her throat, but somehow she managed to clamp her hands down on his wrists. Thunder growled. The rain got heavier even as the destructive force of his power swirled above his pinned hand like disintegrating, black stars. His glare gleamed at her in vibrant green.

"Why?" she whispered.

His brow creased. "What?"

She didn't have much time left before her detransformation. Mere seconds at best. Maybe that was why hot prickles stung her eyes. Maybe that was why the words spilled out of her.

"Why are you doing this? Why did you have to side with _him_? My kwami told me it wasn't meant to be this way. She said we were meant to be a team." Tears rolled down her mask. "She said you were meant to help me."

Something flickered in his eyes.

The last beep sounded. Her suit and mask vanished in sparks of pink. Now she was just a bruised woman wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her head bowed in defeat. There was no strength left in her hands—not the kind that could keep Chat Noir pinned down. But he didn't move. He didn't even try to escape her grasp. Nor did he glance at Tikki, who had fluttered weakly onto the ground beside them.

"I-it can't be," he said shakily. "Marinette?"

Her head snapped up at the sound of her name on his lips. He had gone chalk-white and his eyes were wide.

Wide and horrified.

Suddenly, he bolted like a skittish cat—breaking free of her, slamming his destructive power against one of the metal pillars to get rid of it, and then snatched up his batons and disappeared into the night.

It all happened so fast.

It was like he had never been there at all except for the crumbled pillar.

Marinette let out a breath. "Tikki, what the hell just happened?"

"Judging from the way Chat Noir reacted, I'd say he knows you."

Her chest seized up, squeezing her lungs. "But he ran. Why would he run just because he knows who I am? He's been helping Hawkmoth terrorise Paris for years. He's been fighting _me_ for years. My miraculous was right there for him to take. Why would he—"

"Marinette."

It was the sadness in Tikki's voice that did it. Sadness, because of course Tikki didn't need to explain why Chat Noir had run upon realising she was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Chat Noir really did know her, and it seemed he cared about her as well.

And that meant she knew him.

Marinette's throat burned. She swallowed against the constricting lump and hugged her arms around herself. She didn't know what to do, didn't know what to think. She probably would have stayed there for hours had Tikki not nudged her into motion.

"Come on," Tikki said gently. "Let's go home. Nothing will be solved from staying out here."

"You're right …"

Chat Noir had gone after all.

And now Marinette had to live with the fact that one of her most dangerous enemies was probably also one of her closest friends.


	2. You and Me

Rain falls. Everyone else is hidden under umbrellas, but not her. She stands on the sidewalk: a splash of familiar black pigtails and a pink scarf wrapped around her throat. Kind but oh so forgetful Marinette.

Adrien closes his eyes, inhales deeply, but his feet don't move.

Hesitance curls around his ankles like chains. Sticks his feet. His heart is lodged in his throat and he wants to turn back, turn back, turn back, because he still doesn't know if this is the best decision. (Father has made it clear what his orders and expectations are, and Mother is still waiting in her glass coffin for a kiss of magic that will only come if Hawkmoth wins.)

Yet even now Adrien can't forget that night on the Eiffel Tower. He can't forget seeing his enemy take on the face of the woman he likes, nor the sight of her tears, nor the words she said to him in that small, bitter voice.

_"My kwami told me it wasn't meant to be this way. She said you were meant to help me."_

It hurt then. It still hurts now.

He's hated being Chat Noir from the first day Plagg came to him. Hated every time he's been forced to transform, hated every battle he's fought. Countless upon countless times, he's wondered what would have happened if he hadn't freaked out so much and shown his father the ring. If he had just _listened_ to Plagg and kept his miraculous a secret.

Now, after hearing Ladybug's words, he thinks he knows.

A different life.

He could have had that. A life where maybe he didn't know his father was Hawkmoth. A life where he wasn't commanded to terrorise a city, didn't have to be the villain. A life where that gouging mantra of _the end justifies the means_ didn't have to exist, because he would have been at her side.

She would have been at his.

Adrien curls his fingers tighter around the ring trapped in his hand—cool metal pressed against skin—and marches over to Marinette. Her gaze catches his as he stops and holds his umbrella over her, and just like that he's aware she knows. It's in her widening eyes, the way her body stiffens, her clenched hands.

So, she figured him out. Or at least suspects he is Chat Noir.

"Adrien," she says, low and wary.

"I'm not here to fight."

Her gaze darts left and right and her body tenses even more. He's just showed all his cards, removed any doubts she might have had. It's obvious she doesn't understand why.

"I just came to give you this," he says, and holds up the cat miraculous ring.

"W-what?"

He grasps her hand—still slack from her shock—and presses the ring into her palm. "Maybe in another life I was meant to help you, but I think we can both agree in this one I messed up big time." He closes her fingers around the metal. "Take it. Give it to someone who actually deserves it."

Her lips part slightly and something that might be sorrow flickers in her eyes.

"Oh, and here," he says, pressing the umbrella into her free hand. "Try not to forget yours next time. I won't always be there to lend you mine."

"Adrien …"

He can't bear to look at her any longer, can't bear it when he thinks of all the could-have-beens, so he turns quickly.

Her hand tugs him back.

The umbrella is forgotten on the concrete, and rain slicks trails down both their faces. His heart pounds faster.

"Why?" she asks, an echo of her question that night. "Why did you side with him?"

His eyes prickle, hot and stinging, and his voice is the barest whisper when he speaks. "Because he's my father. Hawkmoth is my father."

" _What?_ But—"

"I'm sorry, Marinette." Adrien slumps, bones suddenly aching with weakness. He wants to fall onto his knees at her feet and weep out all his shame and regret. "I'm so, so sorry. I just … he told me we could have a chance. We could wake up Mum if we used the wish, and I _wanted_ that. I thought I could finally get my family back."

Marinette's grip tightens on his sleeve. "Your mum?" She sounds dazed. "Hawkmoth is trying to save your mum? That's what all this has been about?"

He nods. When he notices the tremor of pity in her expression, that tiny sliver that could whittle away at her sense of justice and rightness, it steels something deep within him. Ladybug is not allowed to look like that. Not for Hawkmoth, not even for him.

He grabs her arm and meets her gaze. "Hey, don't give that face. Just because my father's goal isn't to take over Paris doesn't excuse anything he or I have done. You know he's been hurting people for years—using them, manipulating them. He's made people terrified of their own emotions, and I helped him do that." He glares into her eyes, wanting her to see. "I was selfish, Marinette, and my father was selfish, and my mother made her choice long ago, and that's why you can't pity any of us. Just do your job. Stop him. Stop all this."

Her lips curve into a small, humourless smile. "Don't worry. I know what I have to do. I just … never expected this, I guess."

He lets go of her arm. "Well, now you know."

They stare at each other, rain falling all around. So many words are exchanged in the silence. It's an aching breath of understanding, of being so close yet still so far.

(This is what they could have been. This is what he lost when he chose selfishness over heroism.)

"Anyway, you don't have to worry about me," he says, turning to leave. "I won't fight you anymore."

"What will you do?"

He swallows, standing with his back to her. "Nothing can change the things I've done. When this is all over, I'll turn myself in and pay for my crimes. But for now … I guess it's goodbye to Paris."

Her fingers pluck at his jacket. "Wait."

His heart thumps and he slowly turns to face her. She holds the ring out to him on her palm.

"Why don't you help me?" she asks.

He recoils. "You can't be serious."

"I am."

"But I was your enemy."

"I know."

"I helped him hurt you. Helped him hurt so many others. I did all those awful, awful things."

"I know." She touches his cheek, her voice softening. "I know, Adrien. But that's why I'm asking you to be my partner. The guardian chose you to be the bearer of the cat miraculous for a reason, and though you lost your way for a while, I think you've found it now." She once more offers him the ring. "So, will you do it? Will you help me this time?"

A lump forms in his throat. It's choking and only gets bigger with every second that passes. Tears roll down his cheeks, mingling with the rain. (Because even if he has always hated being Chat Noir, there's something about the thought of fighting at her side that feels so _right_.)

"I don't know if I should," he whispers. "I … I messed up so bad, Marinette."

"Then trust me." She presses the ring into his hand. "Because I know Chat Noir can be more than a villain. He just needs to be given a second chance."

Adrien shakily closes his fingers around the ring, feeling its familiar metal kiss his skin. She smiles and pulls him into her arms.

For the first time, he feels like he's where he belongs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> copy pasted my old end notes for this cause im laughing:
> 
> Ha! Take that, enemy AU! I made you get a decently happy ending after all!
> 
> (This one was trying to be super angsty and depressing as heck, and I was so offended at the ending it kept wanting to have that I spent hours fixing it, and now it's 4am and I have no regreeeeeets.)


End file.
